Upgrade For It
by revolutiondarling
Summary: Alexander Hamilton slips up. But a solution is given to him in the form of a microchip that has the potential to get him everything he's ever wanted.


**I am so ready to see all the stories that are going to be published in the new BMC category! My crossover is a bit different, so I'll explain the weird ones.**

 **Michael is Laurens, Hercules, and Lafayette. The Squips are the historical version of the characters, complete with their 1700s beliefs.**

* * *

Alexander wasn't the type to stay out of the spotlight, but he felt it was a necessity for him to survive. He's been in high school for a few years now, and he's learned to navigate it just fine with his group of friends.

Until today. He's used to the usual torment from Thomas, and the rare instances of Madison joining in. But this time, Thomas had managed to top himself.

"Watch out, short ass!" Thomas yells before tripping him. When Alexander falls, Thomas pulls out a permanent marker and holds on to his backpack. "If you wash this out, I'll pummel you," he threatens while writing. When Thomas walks away in a hurry, he gets up and dusts himself off.

Alexander then enters the cafeteria, a bit humiliated but otherwise completely fine. He sees his usual table, populated by his three only friends. He sits down with them, ready to rant about Thomas.

But first, he finds himself asking, "Boyf? What does that even mean?" Alexander bursts out in the cafeteria in front of his three friends. He holds his backpack while earnestly trying to rub the writing out with a napkin wet from hand sanitizer.

They don't answer in words. First, Hercules raises his backpack, which reads 'ri.' Lafayette does the same, but his backpack read, 'en.' Last but not least, Laurens raises his backpack with a sly smile. His backpack reads, 'ds.'

Alexander is silent for a minute while all of his friends wait. They all chuckle when Alex's expression darkens. "I hate this school," he mutters. But his day gets a tiny bit better when he sees the Schuyler sisters approaching the bulletin board. Eliza points to the sign-up sheet for the play. Both Peggy and Eliza sign, Angelica waiting for a pen to be available.

"Look," he whispers to the trio. Laurens rolls his eyes, which earns him a playful nudge from Lafayette. Hercules just sighs as Alexander says, "Eliza's signing up for the play, they're all signing up for the play. You guys think I should? This is my opportunity!"

Laurens looks at him with confusion, saying, "Didn't you say you didn't feel like being called gay for signing up? I mean, you can dream, but you should really stay under the radar if you don't want to be teased."

Before Alexander can protest, Hercules snickers. "He's right, you know. There's no better time in history to be like us. Waiting for our opportunity to score our rightful coolness. We'll be the best guys to hang with in college."

"I think," Lafayette interjects, "we should be happy for Alexander. If he doesn't want to be like us, he doesn't have to. Go ahead and sign up. Maybe you'll work your way up to set manager, see where that takes you." What had started out as an uplifting message quickly turns into a teasing session delivered by none other than Lafayette.

But Alexander, way too dense to see this and too trustful of Lafayette, decides to take his advice. He marches with newfound confidence to the sign-up sheet. Angelica, who's a bit skeptical, holds back her two sisters from walking away. Alexander signs up for a backstage role.

Thomas and his two other friends riles up the cafeteria to erupt into one big yelling of the word, "Gay!" Angelica sighs in irritation, and Peggy goes to calm everyone down.

Eliza brightly grins and exclaims, "I like gay people!" Of course, this isn't a lie. Eliza was too nice to hate someone before she even met them.

"Well, are you in luck," Alexander says without thinking, under the impression that he's being smooth. It takes him a second before he realizes what he implied. "Wait, no, I mean—"

Eliza gushes, interrupting him, "You are so brave. You don't have to take anything back, because I consider myself to be an ally. I'm always available to talk along with my sisters. Keep expressing yourself, be safe, and have fun in the play." She points to a collection of pride pins on her backpack to prove her point. Alexander covers his mouth in shock as Eliza waves goodbye.

As he walks back to his table in shame, he feels the stares of the cafeteria. Normally, this doesn't hurt him. He's used to it. But now, people are taking notice of him, and not in a good way. He's sure that Thomas will make his life hell, and everyone will immediately feed off of him like vultures.

"So how bad did it go?" Hercules asked, "How royally screwed are you?" Alexander flashes a thumbs-up with a crooked smile, which Lafayette scoffs at. "We all saw your panicked expression, Alex," he added.

Alexander sighs, and admits, "Okay, okay. I may have accidentally implied to Eliza that I am in favor of liking dudes." Lafayette glares at him until he says, "I told her that I'm gay. Which I'm not, so…"

Laurens bursts into laughter. "You… you told Eliza, one of your crushes and one of the most popular girls in school, that you're gay. How are you going to get out of this hole? By the way, congrats on coming out of the closet. Long time coming." Hercules joins in the rousing laughter of Laurens and Lafayette, until some of the cafeteria stares at them. Alexander buries his face in his hands.

Thomas stares at him from another table in the cafeteria. Lafayette picks up on this after a while, and points this out to Alexander. "Hey, um, Thomas is scanning you. Not staring at you, scanning you." Which is a huge difference, instead of Thomas' usual malicious look, he has a look of boredom. Like he's listening to a lecture about insurance.

"Well," Hercules says after a while, playfully punching Alexander's arm, "Enough about Thomas. Good luck at your first play rehearsal, break a leg."

Laurens laughs. "Don't forget about us when you make it to Broadway, okay?" Alexander nods and goes to throw away his finished lunch. Still, Thomas is staring at him. Even Madison is noticing this, and is desperately trying to snap him out of his trance to no avail.

Alexander sighs. This is going to be a long day, he realizes. Only a few more hours until the first rehearsal, though. All he has to do is survive until then.

Which he does. Through successful history and English tests and subpar knowledge of mathematics, he somehow makes it to the drama class after school with Eliza at his side. "I can't believe you got lost!" she exclaims, chuckling, "But you should see the drama classroom. It's part of the reason I love play rehearsal."

Though when she opens the door, the classroom looks bland. Some posters decorate the wall, sharing their space with photos of past productions. The teacher stops looking at his phone and looks at the two students. "I'm pretty sure more people signed up. Are we going to have another two-man production of Romeo and Juliet?" the man asks.

"No, sir," Eliza explains, "My sisters signed up. With all of us, we'll be a four-man production!" She's clearly excited, pumping her fists in the air. "Aren't you excited, Mr. Washington?"

Before he could answer, Madison, Thomas, and Aaron all enter the classroom. Eliza's sisters squeeze past them and assert themselves in the middle of the classroom. "Thank god the popular kids came," Washington said, sighing. "Due to budget cuts, we've had to redecorate with the limited funding in mind. The school board has informed me that if we don't bring up our profits from this play, they'll redirect our budget to another club that everyone clearly needs, woodshop."

"Oh no," Eliza whispers, "I don't want our class to become like the piano club." She rests her hand on her heart. "Gone too soon from this school. I will always remember touching the grand piano for the first time."

Mr. Washington continues, "So to raise our popularity, we're going to do something different from our usual Shakespeare production. We're doing a musical based on a very important founding father…"

"How is that going to interest anyone into coming?" Thomas asks, interrupting the teacher. "Like, politics back then were so bland and dry." Most of the group agrees.

Washington squints and then says, "Well, first of all, we're switching from a play to a musical. A musical featuring mostly rap. But, unfortunately, the school board insisted we make it more 'hip' to the general public. So we're replacing every British soldier with a zombie, and King George is now a bloodthirsty warlord who controls the plague infecting their minds. Yes, this is serious. Please don't leave."

Eliza's eyes widen, but everyone else seems okay with the changes. Alexander merely rolls his eyes. He wouldn't deal with this, he signed up for the technical side of the production. Everyone else could deal with fighting zombie British soldiers and forming a government out of the apocalyptic New World, he would just move set pieces.

"Unfortunately again, we don't have enough people to fill every single role. So we'll have to pull in some more people. We'll start with the tech people, we don't have the budget to buy set pieces anyway," Washington announces, "Ugh, I'm going to go get my migraine medicine from the car. Divide the roles amongst yourselves, don't kill anyone, et cetera."

Eliza picks up the paper from Washington's hands that has all of the roles. "Okay," she says, skimming the paper, "I feel it's only appropriate I be Eliza. But I'll also take the role of Samuel Seabury. Oh god, we'll have to have a quick intermission for my costume change."

"Hey, I could be Lafayette and Thomas. Take two for the team as well," Thomas brags, "And George Eaker."

Madison takes the paper and says, "I guess I'll be Madison, it's only fair. Maybe I could be Hercules, that's a cool name."

Angelica confidently bursts out with, "Angelica and Charles Lee. That'll be a quick enough costume change. And King George."

Peggy sighs, "My name has a pretty small role, so I'll also take on Laurens, Philip, and Maria Reynolds." Everyone seems to be impressed at how many roles she decided to take on. "I mean, we'll have to cut Peggy from the wedding scene, but it'll be cool. And I won't be able to join in the 'I loved him.' Unless we're making the musical gay. Which I'm not opposed to."

"Aaron Burr's a big role, and nobody seems to want to take it, so…" Aaron said, checking off the role. "So who'll be Alexander?" he asks, "Maybe someone who's been awfully quiet."

"I'll take it," Alexander announces, trying not to inject a poisonous tone into his words.

Eliza gleefully beams and says, "We're going to rock the school with this production! God, I love play rehearsal! I'm going to be so depressed when it ends." She looks at a worried Alexander. "No, not like that kind of depressed, I've never been through a lot of bad days. I just... it's hard to explain the feeling."

Angelica nudges Alexander, saying, "She's always like this. A touch of ADD and an already excitable personality will do that to a person."

"Good to know," is Alexander's only response. He watches the scripts being printed out and Eliza, who's leading the group in a singing exercise. It's not going well, and she soon learns that it's a bit hopeless.

Eliza walks over to her two sisters to start working on their harmonies. Alexander doesn't know what to do besides tap his foot against the floor. He approaches Mr. Washington as soon as he walks back in. "May I go to the bathroom?" he asks. Washington nods, going back to his desk.

As he walks out the door, he still can't shake the feeling of being watched. Not watched as in his peers staring at him, he's fine with that. Watched as in being observed by a greater being. A god, perhaps. Or maybe he's going crazy.

Or maybe it's just Thomas sneaking up on him. "What did I say about washing it off? You know what I'll have to do now, right?" Alexander quickly sprints towards the bathroom, but he can't hear the sound of the other's footsteps. He isn't being chased, to his surprise. When he looks back, he finds Thomas holding his head in his hands, mumbling incoherent words.

And then, Thomas is after him. Alexander's too frozen in place to run anywhere. "Keep where you are, short ass," Thomas commands.

"I'm not even that short!" Alexander interjects, looking up to meet Thomas' eyes with hatred in his eyes.

Thomas steps on his shoe. "Have you seen a mirror lately? Oh wait, you don't use those. Clearly." Alexander is mere moments from snapping at him before Thomas interrupts him. "You're a nobody, Alex. And I know what you need."

"I'm not interested in drugs, Jefferson," Alexander mutters, "I mean, you're acting like you're on crack."

Thomas sneers, and says, "Oh, Alex. It's not drugs, it's something much better. It's a squip." Alexander is confused, and mostly convinced this is a cruel joke. "It's from Japan. It's been linked to so many political schemes, it's damn near impossible to get your hands on one of these things. You should be thankful I found a guy."

"Well, what does it do? I bet you don't even have one of these… squips," Alexander retorts.

Thomas chuckles. "Of course I don't. You can't even get this shit on Ebay. But I know a guy, my squip told me you'd want one most of all." He takes a second to catch his breath. "Listen, I'm sorry I tormented you. My squip doesn't like you too much, but now he does. What it does is travel through your bloodstream until it reaches your brain. It'll activate, it'll assess you, it'll advise you on just about everything. It's tailored to every person's desires. Completely safe to use."

Alexander isn't sure how to respond, but Thomas continues, "Six hundred dollars. Back of the local Payless at the mall. Tomorrow, after play rehearsal."

"Wait, six hundred?" Alexander asks. "I don't have that kind of money lying around."

Thomas sighs. "You'd better get it then. It's worth it. You remember my freshman year?"

Alexander squints and says, "You didn't go here freshman year."

"That's what you think, I was here. You just didn't notice," Thomas retorts, smirking, "Think about it. Student council president? Squip's got you on top of the ballot. Honor roll student? The squip's a supercomputer. Got a crush? The squip will have them wrapped and so much more."

"You're starting to sound like one of those infomercial people," Alexander states, crossing his arms. But the idea of a squip is starting to appeal to him. He could have every fleeting crush of his wrapped around his finger, classes wouldn't be any trouble, and maybe he could be cool and chill. But still, the idea is scary to him, a computer powerful enough to implant itself into someone's head and understand social rules?

Thomas is still smiling. "If you get a squip, I'll be glad to invite you to Madison's Halloween party and we'll test it. You're welcome, Alexander. Anything more I need to say?"


End file.
